Saturday Swim

I was supposed to do a 3 hour ride this morning... However, we slept in - it was total bliss!

Now I'm feeling a bit guilty...

We did manage to get to the Brisbane Tri Squad Swim at the Brisbane Boys Grammar Pool. It was great. Lots of mass starts and games and core strength exercises followed by a few relays. I love these sessions. There were quite a lot of people there - nearly 30 I would say. A lot of them are quite new and some are from the beginners squad so it was good to see some new faces and meet new people.

I felt as though my swimming was OK, I feel like as long as my stroke doesn't get rushed then I'm swimming OK. Some of the relays I think I would have done better had I slowed my stroke down and strengthened it rather than just trying to swim fast - more efficiency required I think as the faster I try to swim the less efficient my stroke becomes. I will try to be conscious of this in any of the sprints/relays we do in the future.

Inter Club Run

Tonight we participated in the annual Inter Club run.

We did this one last year as part of Intraining and we went along this year representing Brisbane Tri Squad.

It was a 3km course from the Botanic Gardens along the bike path towards the regatta, but turning around at the end of the floating walkway where it turns to bitumen.

Sophie and I ran together and kept each other honest. We are very similar runners, so it was good to run side by side. I don't feel as though I could have went any harder on the way back, the way out was a bit easier as we were held up a little by other runners.

Neither of us timed it which was a bit hopeless so I have no idea what pace we were at and because I haven't been using my foot pod for a while I wouldn't have a clue how I am running - I suspect slowly!

Ride Inside

Today was a Ride Inside session with Brisbane Tri Squad. Mark took the session and it was very hard!

It consisted of a warmup, followed by 3 x 10min 110 cadence efforts with HR at 90%, 5min recover in between. Then there were 3 x 2min efforts at 90 cadence with the biggest gear that can be maintained to hold the 90 cadence, the last minute we went up a few harder gears just to make sure we were working! We then ran off the bike up to the corner and back.

Needless to say, I was stuffed. I got my HR up to 153 - just. 153 is 90% of my max HR on the bike (171). Most of the time I wasn't at 90%, I found it really hard to get my HR up to that level, I was sweating like a pig and working really hard! It was a very hard session.

The run was great; Paul was a bit crook so he ran with me and pushed me the whole way - I was breathing really hard and just about ready to explode! Paul was keeping up and chatting the whole way! How do they do it? I thanked him at the end in between raspy gasping of breath and I think that's when he realised why I wasn't able to talk to him while running!

2nd attempt at swimming at night

I made a concerted effort to go to swimming tonight!

I got to the Valley Pool early enough to see Libby Lenton swimming, what a beautiful swimmer!

Mark put me in to the slow lane and told me to take it pretty easy. It was good, I worked hard but at no time did I feel stressed or pressured and it worked really well. There was another swimmer there that was just a little bit quicker so we hung out together and worked each other quite hard which was good. Also because the lane is so much bigger there at the edge of the pool we didn't have any problems overtaking or anything.

I can't remember what we did exactly, we did some breathing on every 5 strokes which was really hard!

I am just ecstatic that I survived the session. I hydrated well all day - drank 2 x 1ltr bottles of water and I only got the tinge of a cramp which went away pretty much straight away when I went back to breaststroke. I will make a habit of going along to at least 1 of Mark's sessions, probably the Thursday one each week. I will also do the Saturday lunchtime squad session and then do 2 or 3 of my own sessions and that way my own can be social easy continous swims. This should at least get me the fitness I need for Mooloolaba.

Running with Snakes

I turned up at Active Stride for my run session this morning with Brisbane Tri Squad and there were only a handful of us. As we headed out for our warmup Robson asked if we wanted to have a look at his snake. We all made disparaging comments and told him we didn't need to see his snake! Halfway along the Kangaroo Point Cliffs he stopped and pointed to a nest where you could see a python all crawled up with eggs ready to hatch. She looked quite lovely.

Our run session consisted of some quick steps at the steps along the end of the path and some lunges (2 steps at a time) and then a run up Main Road and around to the right to the top of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs. We then crossed the road and did a circuit that had a bit of a hill in it. We were to go easy around the block until we came to the uphill street where we were to push it all the way to the top and then easy recovery around and do it again. We did this loop 5 times. I was a bit buggered at the end of that! My HR got up to mid 170's.

We then ran easy back until we got to the red statue and then hard to the Goodwill bridge and easy jog home. There wasn't too much easy about any of it!!!

Mt Cootha Repeats

Today was Brisbane Triathlon Squad's first session of 3 out at Mt Cootha. We park in the bottom in the Botanic Gardens which is quite unfortunate as the warmup involves riding up a steep slope to get to Slaughter Falls where we congregated before heading up.

We were supposed to do 3 repeats up the Mt in a clockwise position and once we reach the top turn around and come back down to do the next repeat. It was supposed to be 500mtrs hard, 250 recovery, 500mtrs hard, 250 recovery, etc. until we got to the top, cadence was supposed to be up around 60. This wa a bit of a joke for me as I was in my granny gear pretty much from the bottom of the hill to the top with my cadence quite low (computer wasn't working but it would have been around 40) working my guts out just to get there! There is certainly no recovery in hills for me! I did manage to overtake a few of the girls on the way up and then they all overtook me on the downhill and then we would do it all again. Quite funny really.

I really lack confidence going downhill. I spoke to Mark about it as we were riding back to the car and he said not to be too concerned it's the uphill that we gain the strength from and there are very few triathlons that I am doing that have massive downhills (just Noosa really). So, I can live with that.

I managed to get up the Mt not quite 3 times. So, I was quite happy with the effort.

Leisurely swim

In line with my Mooloolaba preparation I swam today at lunch. There were a couple of us from work that went along to Somerville Pool. I did a 300mtr warmup freestyle, 1.2km pool buoy swim, 200mtr warmdown. I really spent the time concentrating on my stroke, mainly on pulling all the way through and reaching out in front and really grabbing the water. I also tried to concentrate on high elbows under the water as well as over.

It actually felt OK, I felt strong and felt as though my form was hanging in there. I just really need to do more swimming as the Mooloolaba Triathlon is less than 6 weeks away and I have not really made any inroads to my swim preparation.

Today's swim felt a bit like a bludge - more of a social outing than training, so I think I need to have a little attitude adjustment to my swimming!

Running with Dogs

My husband the Half IM guru and I lost our Kelpie over a year ago, so we did a bit of research and we decided that a Dalmation would suit us as they are short coated (I am allergic to dogs), a good size for our fences (or so we thought) and would be able to go on long runs with us. The thought of going on a long run and having a dog as a training companion appeals to both of us.

So, we kept an eye out and we ended up with a giveaway 3yo dalmation called "Natti", we know now that she was named because she is scatty! She has been given away twice... Hence we knew that she must have behavioural problems, but we are brave souls. When we went to take a look at her she just about bowled us over and we hadn't even got out the back door! She was very pushy and bargy - certainly not the sort of dog you would have around toddlers! However, she was so friendly and lovely we decided to take her. Craig went to lead her out to the car and I must admit feeling a tad frightened - this dog was strong and she could PULL! She also managed to chew through one of our seat belts on the trip home, so she's a chewer too huh!

Some intensive training has taken place and she is now able to not jump all over us, her licking has stopped (did I mention the licking!). She is still a complete handful if you take her anywhere, but she is cerainly getting better. She has demolished every pair of thongs that were ever left outside our house, escaped from our fences too many times to mention, but overall she is a great dog who is becoming a loyal friend.

Our dream of having a running partner was realised this morning! I took her with me on my 45min easy run and she was an absolute dream. She ran with me at my right heel the whole way, she ran past other dogs and cars and cows and pigs and horses without causing me to fall flat on my face. Amazing! I was able to loop her lead rope end onto my arm and rest it in the crook of my elbow so it didn't interfere with my running technique and it offered her enough rope to run and not get yanked or tangled up. There were a couple of times where I talked to her to get her attention back if she was looking at a dog and running off course, etc, but overall she was brilliant. Being the fabulous dog trainer that I am I created a new command that we hadn't practiced - "move over" when a car is coming up so that she moves off the road and onto the grass. The first few times this happened I walked a few steps to make sure she was off the road and then we started running again, the last couple we were able to continue at the same pace with her moving over to our new found command, so she is picking it up really well. I could see her watching me the whole time and concentrating on where she should be, she really was doing great. She had a smile on her face for a long time afterwards.

My run was pretty good, HR around 150 the whole way. It was a very slow run, I'm not sure what pace it was but I expect it would have been 6:30min/kms or even perhaps a bit slower than that.

Bribie Island Triathlon Team

Craig and the kids all came along to watch and cheer for BTS. Craig didn't compete so he was my strapper after me being his strapper at Geelong Half Ironman last weekend! The team wave was last so I didn't get out onto my run until 9:17am. It was quite warm but not exceedingly so.

My run was about 46 minutes. I was really happy with this considering how I had been feeling lately. Yesterday, after my bike ride I was shattered and it was a really easy cycle. So, I started the run with a bit left as I didn't know how I was going to go. As I built into the run I started to feel really good and felt quite strong. I ended up doing the first lap in 24mins and the last lap in 22mins so I managed to negative split it. I don't remember ever doing that in a run before! My HR was quite high, it was between 164 and 175 so I was working very hard.

I know that Team Hulme didn't come last as I passed another runner in the same category! However, we didn't set a new course record either! It was good to do an 8km run, it is probably the longest run I have done in a little while. I will start to build these up over the next few weeks in preparation for Mooloolaba.

Lovely LBR

I did the Saturday ride with BTS and we left Stafford with Suzanne and me out front of the group. We were a group of about 12 which is not a bad size group. We quickly got the sack as we had no idea where we were going and the people shouting directions had less of an idea!

I ended up about in the middle of the pack and it was raining and pretty horrible. I was quite worried as this was my first pack ride since my accident. I really need to work on my confidence as I wasn't holding the wheel which I know is really annoying for everyone... I actually got better at the end of the ride so I am hoping that this will improve fairly quickly and I will be back to riding OK in the pack.

There was one time where we rode around the airport where John was sent up to the front - I knew we were in trouble then! All of a sudden I was trying to hang on for dear life! I was behind Sarah and she hung in there, but unfortunately I got dropped off, I just couldn't hang on to them. I'm doing OK fitness wise on the bike at the moment so it really shows how well Sarah is going to be able to hang on to the guns.

We then rode fairly casually out to Boondall wetlands and then the slower ones (yes that's me) came back with Bronny via Nudgee Beach and the Chermside Criterium and bike tracks. It was a very relaxed pace and it was extremely civilised due to us racing the following day. If only all rides were like this!

It ended up being a 2 1/2 hour ride with my heart rate not often above 130's.

Spin Class at Ride Inside

It was an interesting spin class. I woke up in agony, my calf muscles were excruciating. I wasn't quite sure if it was from the massage or the stairs. In hindsight - I am blaming the stairs!

I could hardly crouch down to go to the loo - yeah, I know; too much information! Craig and I left and we headed in, I hobbled in to Ride Inside and set up the bike, etc. I took great care once I was on the bike doing a warmup to really stretch the calves out. I was really worried about running off the bike with my legs as tight as a ducks bum.

The spin class was a cardio session where we did sets of 3 minutes at 90 and then 95% HR. I could not get my HR about 143! It was a disaster, I tried different gears, tried higher cadence - which I struggled with and then lower cadence. Nothing was working. I was at about 100 Cadence and breathing hard, but the HR wasn't budging. I called Mark over and explained it to him and he asked if I was tired. My legs were sure tired! I explained that the stairs yesterday seemed to knock me around and that I was a bit tired so he said to listen to my body and go with that. So I felt like a bit of a bludger, sitting there at 140 while everyone around me was pushing a high HR.

During the recovery sets I took great care to stretch out the calves again and then after the last set we ran off the bike. I took off as hard as I could and thought that I would just try and maintain it for as long as I could. My legs were actually OK, I didn't get any twinges to indicate they were about to cramp and I was running quite strongly. I was quite happy with my run. I think that the massage can attribute a fair bit to reducing the cramps as ordinarily if I was that tight in the calves there's no way they wouldn't have cramped on a quick sprint.

We did a warmdown and then lots of stretching.

At coffee afterwards Sarah was telling me about her shin splints and how she was doing Bribie, but just not doing the run. So, I offered to do the run for her and she changed things so that she was a team. I figured in lieu of my fatigued status I could do the run hard or slow depending on how I felt on the day and I probably didn't need to do the whole lot. Although I must start swimming sometime soon or I am going to drown at Mooloolaba!!!

Stairs... and then some more stairs!!!

I ran with the BTS Squad this morning. Chris and Robson took the session and we did our warmup along to the front of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs which is a little bit shorter than where we usually go. Instead of thinking, "Oh, this is nice" I should have twigged...

We did some stride outs and some bum kicks and then we were sufficiently warmed up.

I hadn't noticed before but halfway along the cliffs are a set of stairs that wind and weave up into the clouds to the top of the cliffs! We had to do two sets of these doing quick steps followed by some step lunges and then another two quicksteps (we did get to take it easy on the way down - walk/jog recover). My lungs were burning! Thank goodness my HRM was accidentally left down at Torquay in the unit we stayed in as it would have been off the radar!

After that we did another set of step lunges and then we did 2 goes at going up 2 steps at a time, then we did some planks down the bottom and then we did another 1 of the steps going 2 at a time and then up the top of the steps we had a little breather - phew! Managed to enjoy the views for just about a full minute before we went into 5 x 5 pushups followed by a quick sprint out jog back recovery and into the next set.

After this set we all congregated and did a squat for about a minute and then a sprint hard until we got to the end of the cliffs and then we jogged back to the Active Stride shop at Southbank for a recovery.

My legs were shaking, they were still shaking when I was in the shower at work almost an hour later! This is by far the hardest session I have done in a while.

The different exercises were aimed to mimic swim to cycle, cycle to run transitions which are great practice.

I felt quite strong today even though I am really struggling now, it was a great session. I had no hints of cramping in the legs and I really feel that this is due to the massage that I had.

Swim

A group of us from work all hit the pool together.



It's nice when you can get a group together, it helps me to make sure that I go. I have been struggling with swimming lately. I think because I know that I can get through the swim leg with little training doesn't help my cause. I have to swim more than once a week which seems to be my average swim training!



The session I did was very easy; 1km swim continuous, timing the 500mtrs (both just under the 10min mark). Followed by 200mtrs kick, 200mtrs pull (bilaterally breathing), 100m breaststroke warmdown.



I felt good, my stroke was feeling OK, I was pulling through the water well. I think now, I just need to expand on it to get some endurance back and then attend a few of Mark's BTS lunchtime Saturday sessions and it will start to come together nicely.



It was a bit of a confidence builder swim

Spin at home with Dad

The forecast this morning was for monsoonal rains easing into rain and showers in the afternoon, so the BTS cycle was cancelled. I was kind of relieved that it was cancelled as I was already leaning towards doing a spin at home instead of trying to tackle Mt Gravatt in monsoonal rains!




I spoke to Dad and we arranged to do the spin together. Craig was in Sydney entertaining clients so we ploughed on with our fitness without him!




We did the Big Gear Strength Spinervals DVD which is actually the same one that I did last Wednesday. I figured that this was close enough to doing the Mt Gravatt progressive gears that we had been doing.


Needless to say, it was hard work. I had the air conditioner on and I had the fan on but it was not enough, I was sweating buckets. Next time I will put the fan on the coffee table to make it a bit higher.



This is a great workout for 55 minutes. It really is fantastic, my legs were burning.

Jan Juc Beach run

A massive weekend was planned fo us. This weekend was Craig's Geelong 70.3 Half Ironman weekend. There were 2 others from BTS competing (Tim and Mark) and I went down to support all of them. It was fun flying with a bike as luggage, made us feel like real athletes!


So, we flew out of Brisbane on the Friday after my spin class at Ride Inside. We hired a car at Melbourne and drove down to Jan Juc, just near Torquay about 30mins drive from Geelong. It was a real adventure. The place we stayed at (Wattle Grove) was just lovely, really peaceful, surrounded by trees and it just had a really good vibe.

The sun doesn't set down there for ages, so we went for a drive to the infamous Bells Beach. It was blowing a gale and freezing cold. Craig didn't have a jumper on so we went back to the warmth of the unit!

Saturday morning we had a massive sleep in and eventually we got going and Craig wanted to test ride his bike that he put together the night before and make sure there were no problems with it prior to going into transition. I had on my programme a 45 - 55 minute run. So I fiddle farted about and eventually got going.

The people that were managing the place suggested I run along the path on the beach so I gave that a burl. It was probably the most beautiful, scenic, well footed runs I have ever done. It was one of those runs where I really didn't want to turn around to come home, it was just magnificent. I ran from Jan Juc around to the point and into Torquay. I didn't make it into the Torquay township thought. The run meandered along the coastline, at times you were looking out over the beautiful ocean and at times you were running through beautiful bushland, there were a few little hills, there were steps, it had everything. There were plenty of people out exercising with their dogs and kids and everyone was really friendly. I wanted to stay! My HR was around the high 140's mainly, although it did get up to the low 160's on a couple of the hills.

A very enjoyable run indeed!

When I got back Craig told me that his ride was hell, it was really hilly and really windy (it was very windy on my run - at one time I was running up a hill and the wind was trying to push me downhill and I was barely moving forwards!). I can't imagine what it would be like to be riding in that! I felt sorry for Craig, he seemed a little concerned that the wind was going to make it very tough going for him on Sunday. I guess everyone is in the same boat.

We went later in the afternoon to register Craig, check his bike into transition and drive the course so that he knew what he was up against. Mark stayed the night with us.

Ride Inside Spin

Today was a hard session... Unlike the others! It was more of a cardio session than a strength session. We did 4minutes with a high cadence of 110 or more @ 95%, then a break and we would do it all again. I think we did this 4 or 5 times. This was the main set, there was warmup and cooldown, etc also. I found it really difficult to keep on the 110 cadence, I tried an easier gear but then I didn't feel as though I was working hard enough. I did the set in my big gear ring and about the 3rd easiest on the rear. We would progressively go into a harder gear during the set which made it even harder to keep on the cadence of 110.

We did a run off the bike at the end of the last set and I flew off the bike and tried to hang onto Jacquie Elliot, but she was getting away from me. I passed Chris and he made encouraging comments, although I couldn't respond (can't talk - breathing!!!). However, I was pulled up pretty quickly as my left calf was threatening to cramp, so I eased back and Chris passed me by and I lost Jacqui... Never mind, I will get there one day!

Had coffee with the guys afterwards and then flew home to pack and catch a plane to Melbourne to support Craig's Geelong 70.3 Half Ironman quest! How exciting!

A good run

It was a lovely morning in Brisbane.

I ran with the squad. Craig didn't come in as he is tapering for Geelong Half Ironman. It is very exciting as we are flying down to Melbourne tomorrow for it. It will be lovely to be going to a triathlon as a spectator. Mark and Tim are also going down for it, so I will be support crew for all of them.

The run this morning was over the Goodwill Bridge, into the Botanic Gardens and then we did some stride outs. After our warm up we went up the steps (doing quick steps) near the Edward St Entrance and turned left and ran 90% effort to the next steps and then recovery down those steps and along the water. I did this continuously for 6 loops. As usual I really struggled with the warm up and was just hanging onto the group, but I found my rhythm with the loops and felt really strong. I didn't check my HR, but I reckon it was near max HR! I managed to do 6 loops, a few did 8 (or maybe 9) loops and a most did 5 loops, so I was somewhere in the middle which was really pleasing. I was certainly feeling as though some of my run fitness may be returning which is great.

Whilst we were in the Botanic Gardens I saw Anna Bligh our Premier, so that was exciting.

I didn't pull up too sore. I wore my skins all day just in case. My foot is bothering me just a little, I think I will have to make the effort to go to the Physio next week to sort out my hip and foot.

I was going to swim today, however I got caught up in work and didn't make it to the pool so I am going to have to make amends when we are down in Geelong.

Easy swim

Does it get any easier that this??

My swim today was 1km solid, no breaks really concentrating on my stroke and form. The things that I was really trying to focus on was pushing my stroke right back by touching my thigh with my thumb and then trying to push the water back behind me out of the water. I tried to visualise splashing someone behind me with the water that I had dragged through. The other thing was climbing a ladder with my arms - really reaching up for that next rung and pulling myself through. And lastly, I concentrated on trying to keep high elbows on top of my stroke when my arm was out of the water and also when my stroke was under the water - to maintain the high elbows. This still needs a bit of work.

After my 1km I was chatting to my old coach who also happened to be swimming so I started to run out of time and ended up finishing the session with 100m kick, 100m pull (bilaterally breathing; unlike the 1km) and then 100m breaststroke where I concentrated on high elbows and not pulling my stroke too far back. I just wanted to keep it nice and neatly in front of me.

So, it felt as though it was a bit of a bludge and I do really need to step up my swimming if I am going to survive Mooloolaba. The 1km felt good, I felt as though I could maintain my stroke the whole way through and it didn't feel too bad. Maybe I have got something to work with!

Big Gear Ring Spinervals

I made the decision last night to not go and do the squad ride as the weather prediction was for heavy rain and I really didn't want to do Mt Gravatt if there was heavy rain around.

So, I made the decision to set up the bike on the wind trainer and do the Big Gear Ring Strength DVD which is effective reproducing Hill efforts pushing a hard gear which is what the plan was at Mt Gravatt.

The session I did was as follows:

Warmup 5mins (small/15 gear) easy resistance
3 x 30sec / 30sec rest
1 min easy
One leg drill 3 x 1min each leg (big/12) hard resistance (5)
1 min easy (small/15)
5 min effort 45sec standing (big/12) 15 sec seated (big/13)
1 min easy (small/15)
5 x 1min hard (big/12) 1 min rest (small/15)
Off bike - One leg lunges 3 x 10 each leg
2 min easy
3 min effort 50sec standing 10sec seated
1 min easy
3 x 1min hard 1 min rest
1 min easy
3 x 20sec sprint 1min recovery
Cooldown

It was quite a hard session and my legs are really feeling it! You are unable to bludge, that is for sure! Although I did get a phone call midway through the lunges. Actually, I need to work on the lunges, mine were feeble attempts really. I didn't go down anywhere near low enough. I will have to work on this. I might incorporate them into my core exercises.

45min run

My favourite session of the week! Today was an easy 45min run with HR between 140 and 155bpm.

I ran from home down the end of our street and up Hogan Street to the end, did two loops of Hogan Street and then ran back to the gate at our place. This was 6.4kms and it took me 45minutes.

I am not going to translate the pace as it was very slow. I had to run pretty slow to keep my HR down. The first 10minutes I couldn't get my HR below 160 and it was often in the 170's and I was going SLOW. This is common for me though; having a high HR for the first 10minutes of a session and then it calms down once I warm up. Maybe it's the shock of exercise and my body reacting to it!!!

The morning was wet, it was raining when I left, but it was quite comfortable, it was muggy and it smelt beautiful (except the paddock down the end of our street with all the rotting food!). No dogs bothered me as they were all curled up under cover! On the way back in it absolutely poured down! By the time I finished the run you could have wrung me out.

The run felt good, a little foot niggle which I will end up going to the physio about soon. I booked in for a massage today to go and see a new woman at Carina tomorrow night, so I am looking forward to that. She comes highly recommended so we'll see how that goes. It will be nice for her to free up my shoulders and neck.

Goondiwindi Hell of the West!

Well, this is the big one!

We had a BTS Fundraiser on the Friday night which meant that we didn't get to bed until midnight which is not ideal preparation! We slept in until 6am on Saturday morning and then madly scrambled around packing up our gear and making a getaway for the 4 hour drive out to Goondiwindi. Dad, Craig and I went out together and because we were all competing we were madly hydrating. Needless to say it was a slow trip out! Many toilet breaks were had!

We got out there and checked in, unpacked, grabbed some lunch and then decided to drive the cycle and run course. I was doing the cycle in a team with my friend Trisha and her mate from Sydney; Ross. Craig was doing the swim and run in a team with Dad doing the cycle, so we were keen to see what we were up against. We did the cycle first and it was good to see that at every 10k they had markers as my speedo has been a bit sporadic with working (it is mostly not working). The road seemed like a very long way out - it is a very dead road with no shoulder.

The run took a different road and it seemed a long way as well, I was very happy to not be doing the run - poor Craig!

We went for a bit of a swim and cycle just to make sure that everything was all in good working order. The water was quite warm, about the temperature that I would have a bath at home! Some places it was cool, but they were few and far between. There was a little bit of weed in the river, but not too much. We found out after the race that the river had a bit of algae in it until the recent rain washed it all away! There was a 3 legged dog hanging around transition area and we were joking that it fell into the river one day and that is how it lost its leg!

We then registered and picked up our goodies and listened to the race briefing. I went back to the unit and heated up my lentils and rice in the microwave whilst Craig and Dad did the Carbo loading dinner. We stayed at the Country Comfort Motel on Marshall Street and it was great. I think we will stay there again next year.

I was feeling nervous, but not too bad. I managed to eat, I was well hydrated, I washed my bike, oiled the chain - I was good to go.

We had an early night and we all slept like logs! Maybe this was attributed to the 12am bed time the night before! The alarm woke us at 2:40am and there was a mad scramble of 3 panicked people getting themselves organised in one room with one toilet! It all worked out and we left there at 3:20 to head to transition with Alex, Trish and Ross. I had a minor panic when I went to put my bike into an easy gear and found that the gears were not changing nicely. Luckily Dad was there and he tweaked them for me and it was all made better again! They didn't give me any problems thank goodness.

There is nothing like not having to queue for numbering and racking, etc. We got in without any hassles and then went to relax and hydrate on the picnic tables near the toilets! We had everything we needed right there! We watched the numbering queue get longer and longer and the time to go to the swim start get closer and closer and it really amazes me that people don't get there 20 minutes earlier as it makes a huge difference to your stress levels pre-event.

Dad, Ross and I went down to the swim start to see Alex, Trish and Craig off and then we headed back to transition to await their return.

My teammate Trish had a blinder of a swim, she actually got out of the water just in front of Craig which she was thrilled with. Craig came into transition first as there is a bit of a run from the swim to T1 and he had overtaken Trish, he sung out to me as he went past that Trish was right behind him. Trish and I must have done a great transition because as it turned out I was out quicker than Dad onto the bike, but he quickly caught me.

Riding out of Goondiwindi felt OK, I wasn't overly nervous, I felt prepared, I had 3 bottles of Accelerade on the bike and 4 anzac cookies. Probably overkill, but better not to take chances. I concentrated on my race plan which was to break the ride into 4 chunks of 45 minutes. I aimed to do each 20km in under 45mins. I wanted to concentrate on keeping my cadence at 90-95 and my HR below 155. I also wanted to sip from my drink bottle every 5 mins. I tend to not get good gulps in so a sip every 5 minutes was going to be the plan.

This plan worked a treat, Cadence - tick, HR - tick, Hydration - tick! The 45 mins was blown out the door though - I was doing the 20kms in 40 minutes. I got to the 40km turnaround in 1hr 20min. I had figured out earlier that I obviously had a tail wind and this was confirmed by Dad yelling out "Head wind!" to me as he headed back in towards Goondiwindi. I managed to discard a bottle and rotate a bottle from my newly setup rear bidon holder to the front and take on a water bottle and put it in the rear without falling off - no mean feat!

The support crew out there were great, they were every 20kms with water and bananas, they did a great job.

I also managed to stay on my tri-bars for pretty much all the way out other than when I was drinking or eating. I had two bits of anzac cookie on the way out. I was a bit concerned with my left hamstring, it had the beginnings of thinking about cramping and funnily enough it was whilst I was not on my tri-bars that I really noticed it. So, that was more incentive to stay down on them.

After the turnaround things got a little bit tougher! I could immediately feel the head wind. I ducked down into my tri-bars and just made sure that my cadence didn't get too low. However, it was shortly after the turnaround that it was really starting to bother me on the bars, my bum was hurting, my shoulders were hurting, it was just getting really uncomfortable! The road was just really hard going, it was very dead and bumpy and not conducive to a comfortable ride. Between the 50k and 70k mark I really struggled with it. I saw others struggling as well, the wind was up, although we did get a bit of a reprieve when there were trees either side of the road which was a welcome relief.

My motivation was that Ross my runner would be running in less heat the earlier I could get back and I believed that the sooner I got home the kinder the winds would be for me. Usually they pick up as the day goes on so I was really keen to keep moving forward.

When I saw the 70k mark I decided that I would really try and hammer it home, I could endure the pain for another 10ks - surely!!! There was a woman that overtook me and then dropped a water bottle, she stopped and pulled over to pick it up and I overtook her and then we played cat and mouse all the way in to town. I was so happy to see the grain silos as I knew that this was only 4 or 5kms into transition from there. Also, the road started to get smooth - at this stage my race plan had converted into just finding the smoothest part of the road and riding on this - it was all that I cared about!

I pulled into transition and ran my bike into the racks and found Ross waiting for me. He took my timing band and he was off - into the heat for the run! It was about 8:40 in the morning and he had 20kms to go - I can not imagine having to run 20kms after that ride!

Dad and Trish were also in transition, I thought that Dad must have already returned from his shower, but Trish tells me that I was only 7 minutes behind him on the bike, so I was tickled pink with this - I was able to do the cycle leg in under 3 hours. I think it would be a time of 2:56.

I was pretty sore, my hamstring and glutes were screaming at me. I guess the lesson for me was that I need to get more comfortable on the tri bars as this is what held me back rather than my fitness. My HR on the way out was mid to high 140's, but on the way back it dropped to high 130's to mid 140's, but I just couldn't ride any harder. I felt good hydration and nutrition wise, I was just incredibly uncomfortable!

All in all it was a fantastic weekend, we all had a really great time and Goondiwindi turned on the hospitality in the way that only a country town knows how. Can't wait for next year!